Mark Nepo, a bestselling author, poet, and philosopher, invites us to describe the majesty of being human in his book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred. He suggests we each write a line and collect them into a group poem. This morning I started the poem as follows:

The majesty of being human is…

being broken open by this life, spilling some of our Life-force out onto the ground,

and then being slowly sewn back together by invisible hands;

facing our utter weakness to become who we wish to be,

and then stepping forward to embrace some aspect of that very being;

becoming my darkness and my light,

and standing in awe at the beauty of both;

coruscating – reflecting the bright glory of God

through this frail human vessel;

going to the depths of loneliness and longing,

and then discovering the wonder of being in simple community with other beings;

yearning for something more, something larger than myself, with which to unite,

and then answering the call to become still enough

to fall into that very union now.

Now it’s your turn. Will you add a phrase to help create this majesty poem?

For more practices like this see Monks in the World: Seeking God in a Frantic Culture, now available as a Kindle book.

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About soulcare4u

I am the author of Monks in the World: Seeking God in a Frantic World, published by Wipf & Stock and available through Amazon.com; and of a blog on Wordpress.com, "A Contemplative Path." I serve as the founding spiritual director of The School for Contemplative Living (www.thescl.net), adjunct faculty of Loyola University, and as a pastoral counselor and spiritual director in private practice.